NUTRITION ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY, SERIES #66
Carol Rees Parrish, R.D., M.S., Series Editor
Water Intoxication—Considerations
for Patients, Athletes and Physicians
Timothy D. Noakes
Prior to 1969 athletes were advised to avoid drinking any fluids during exercise. But
beginning in the 1970’s, the idea gained credence that not to drink during exercise was
“criminal folly” that could lead to dehydration-induced heat stroke. As a result athletes
were advised to drink “beyond thirst” by ingesting “as much as tolerable” during exercise. The clinical sequelae of this advice became apparent in 1981 when the first
reported case of exercise-associated hyponatremic encephalopathy in a female runner
during a 90 km ultramarathon foot race in South Africa was reported. This article
reviews exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH) and exercise-associated hyponatremic
encephalopathy (EAHE) and provides safe guidelines for hydration during exercise.
INTRODUCTION
rior to 1969 athletes were encouraged to avoid
drinking any fluids during exercise since it was
believed that fluid ingestion would impair exercise
performance, in particular by causing gastrointestinal
distress, the so-called “stitch.” Athletes in those years
actively followed that advice, priding themselves on
their ability to run even 26 mile (42 km) marathon races
without drinking (1). Furthermore, the rules then governing competitive distance running restricted the
amount of fluid to which athletes had access.
P
Timothy D. Noakes, MBChB, MD, DSc, FACSM, Professor in the Discovery Health Chair of Exercise and
Sports Science, Director of the UCT/MRC Research
Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine,
Department of Human Biology, University of Cape
Town, Sports Science Institute of South Africa, Newlands, South Africa.
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PRACTICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY • SEPTEMBER 2008
In 1981 the first case of exercise-associated hyponatremic encephalopathy (EAHE) occurred in a 46-year-old
female marathon runner in a 90 km Comrades ultramarathon in South Africa. She presented with the symptoms
and signs typical of EAHE as listed in Table 1 (2).
In 1991 we provided definitive evidence that exercise-associated hyponatremic encephalopathy (EAHE)
is due to abnormal fluid retention in those who overdrink during prolonged exercise and to which a sodium
deficit plays little or no part (3). Shortly after the publication of this compelling evidence, influential sporting organizations began to promote the value of
drinking “as much as tolerable” but failed to warn of
the proven dangers of overdrinking during exercise.
As a result, more than 10 documented deaths from
EAHE, an entirely preventable condition, have been
reported in the scientific literature since 1991 (4).
(continued on page 48)
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NUTRITION ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY, SERIES #66
(continued from page 46)
savannah more than 2 million years ago. Thus, it
is proposed that our early hominid ancestors discovered that they could capture non-sweating
mammals, especially swifter antelope, by chasing
them in the mid-day heat. Profuse sweating
EAH
EAHE
allowed early hominids to safely regulate their
Symptoms
body temperatures as they chased these antelope
Nausea
Headache
for many hours in midday heat. Provided they
Vomiting
Altered level of consciousness
could chase the antelope for long enough in suffiUnexplained fatigue
Coma
ciently hot conditions, the antelope’s brain temImpaired exercise performance
Convulsion/Seizure
perature would finally become too high causing it
to seek shade and to stop running. There the temSigns and clinical findings
Evidence for weight gain
Evidence of weight gain
porarily paralyzed animal could be more easily
Serum [Na+] <135 mmol/L
Serum [Na+] <130 mmol/L
dispatched even by hunters, who as recently as
Cerebral edema
100,000 years ago, lacked more modern implePulmonary edema
ments like spears and knives. The theory is that
the high energy diet provided by these antelope
There is no historical evidence that the absence of
allowed the rapid growth of the human brain and hence
regular drinking during exercise produced any adverse
the development of Homo sapien.
consequences. The first purported case of heat injury in
Naturally the best hunters would be those who were
a marathon runner who did not drink during competineither overcome by thirst nor incapacitated by the loss
tion—Jim Peters in the 1954 Commonwealth (Empire)
of a large volume of body water caused by the heavy
Games marathon in Vancouver—may not have been
sweating during the three-to-six hours required for a sucdue to heat stroke (5). Instead, a series of publications
cessful hunt (11). Like all the great runners of the past
in the 1960’s showed that marathon runners who drank
(1), the most successful hunters would have drunk little
little or nothing seemed to do rather well, often winning
since carrying water would have impeded their progress
races despite finishing with advanced grades of “dehyand reduced their probability of success whilst hunting.
dration” and high core body temperatures (6–8). This
outcome might be expected if humans evolved their
PROMOTION OF THE CONTRARY BELIEF
modern form specifically because of a superior capacTHAT HUMANS ARE POORLY ADAPTED
ity to run prolonged distances in (dry) heat with little or
TO EXERCISE IN THE HEAT
no fluid replacement (9–11).
Two separate events that happened between 1965 and
1969 led to a contrary perception that humans are
HUMANS EVOLVED AS RUNNERS ABLE TO
poorly adapted for exercise in the heat and are at risk
EXERCISE FOR PROLONGED PERIODS IN DRY
of death from heat stroke if they sweat profusely and
HEAT WITH MINIMAL FLUID REPLACEMENT
do not drink copious amounts of fluid during exercise
This novel theory first proposed in the early 1900’s
thereby developing “dangerous dehydration.”
(12,13) holds that humans evolved our particular biologFirst was the development of the world’s first
ical features including long legs and short arms; relative
sports drink at the University of Florida, beginning in
hairlessness associated with an unmatched ability to lose
1965. The drink was developed by a renal physician, Dr
heat by sweating; strong core abdominal muscles; and the
Robert Cade, who was certain that fluid ingestion durcapacity to rotate the upper and lower bodies in opposite
ing exercise would prevent the development of “heat”
directions, because all these adaptations gave early
illness including heat stroke and heat cramps during
humans an evolutionary advantage over other non-sweatexercise. But the drink became an overnight commering mammals with whom we shared the hot African
cial success especially in the United States, because of
Table 1.
Diagnostic features of exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH)
and hyponatremic encephalopathy (EAHE)
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NUTRITION ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY, SERIES #66
its alleged capacity to enhance the performance of
American football teams, first collegiate and later professional, in the fourth quarter of football matches (14).
Second, a group of South African researchers
showed an apparently causal relationship between
fluid ingestion during exercise, the prevention of
“dehydration” and lower body temperatures in athletes
competing in a series of 20 mile (32 km) running races
(15). These researchers concluded that athletes who do
not drink sufficient fluids during marathon running are
at risk of developing heat stroke and that the international ruling then in place which restricted fluid availability during marathon running was “criminal folly.”
Together these concepts led to the idea that athletes
needed to drink “as much as tolerable” during exercise
in order to maximize their performance and to insure
that they do not die from heat stroke (16,17). Skillful
marketing (18,19) soon led to the universal acceptance
that not to drink “as much as tolerable” during exercise
was extremely unwise. Soon it became the accepted
truism that any weight loss during exercise is detrimental to both health and performance (16,17).
The defining event which invited a re-assessment
of this new “truth” occurred on June 1, 1981 when an
athlete competing in the 56 mile (90 km) Comrades
Marathon in South Africa was admitted to hospital in
an unconscious state having developed a grand mal
epileptic seizure. Her serum sodium concentration on
hospital admission was 115 mmol/L confirming a
diagnosis of EAHE. She regained consciousness after
two-days and was released from hospital four-days
later. Subsequent investigation over the next two years
uncovered three additional cases of EAH and EAHE in
South African ultra-endurance athletes. Their case
reports were subsequently published in 1985 in a paper
entitled “Water intoxication: A possible complication
during endurance exercise” (2). In time the term EAH
would supercede that of water intoxication (20). The
paper drew the following conclusion: “The etiology of
this condition appears to be voluntary hyperhydration
with hypotonic solutions combined with moderate
sweat sodium chloride losses . . . advice (on fluid
replacement) should be tempered with the proviso that
the intake of hypotonic fluids in excess of that required
to balance sweat and urine losses . . . may be hazardous in some individuals.”
In 1988, to evaluate this novel theory, PhD student
Anthony Irving hospitalized eight Comrades Marathon
runners with exercise-associated hyponatremic
encephalopathy (EAHE) in order to study their fluid and
sodium balance during recovery (3). He showed that all
athletes had drunk to excess during the race gaining
between two-to-six kilograms (four-to-12 pounds).
However, there was no evidence that subjects with
EAHE had incurred a greater sodium deficit than had
control runners who completed these races with normal
serum sodium concentrations. Thus we concluded that
EAH “results for fluid retention in subjects who ingest
abnormally large fluid volumes during prolonged exercise” since this study found “that each of eight subjects
who collapsed with the hyponatremia of exercise (mean
plasma sodium concentration 122.4 ± 2.2 mM) were
fluid overloaded by an amount ranging from 1.22 to
5.92 liters. These fluid volumes are conservative
because no allowance was made for insensible water
losses during recovery” and that “sodium chloride
losses alone cannot explain the hyponatremia of exercise” (3). The key findings are presented in Figure 1.
Our finding that subjects with EAHE did not have
a larger sodium deficit than controls is historically
important because this evidence has essentially been
ignored. Instead, theoretical arguments without experimental support (21–23) were advanced to explain why
some might develop EAH or EAHE as the result of
unreplaced sodium deficits incurred during prolonged
exercise. However, no study has yet been able to document a sodium deficit in patients with EAH or EAHE
whereas many studies have either confirmed our original finding (24–28) or shown that sodium chloride
ingestion during exercise does not influence the serum
sodium concentration in those who do not overconsume fluids during exercise (29,30). Since EAH and
EAHE are due to abnormal fluid retention, only drinks
containing sodium at a concentration well in excess of
that found in blood (>140 mmol/L) would theoretically play some role in the prevention of these conditions (31). In reality, such drinks are unpalatable and
likely to induce nausea and vomiting.
Unfortunately, our original findings had little practical impact. For 10 years after the publication of our
original paper, a number of influential organizations
produced drinking guidelines which promoted the conPRACTICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY • SEPTEMBER 2008
49
Water Intoxication
NUTRITION ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY, SERIES #66
ied runners developed EAH. This compares with the
absence of a single case ever of EAH in 42 km
marathons in South Africa and New Zealand (19).
The authors proved that the same four risk factors
previously surmised (4,35) predicted the risk of EAH
during the marathon race:
• Substantial weight gain (odds ratio, 4.2)
• Consumption of more than 3 liters of fluids during
the race, consumption of fluids every mile, a racing
time of >4:00 hours (odds ratio, 7.4)
• Female sex
• Low body-mass index
Figure 1. The study of Irving, et al (3) compared sodium
chloride (middle panel) and fluid (right panel) balance in athletes who finished the 90 km Comrades Marathon with either
normal or reduced (EAH and EAHE) serum sodium chloride
concentrations (left panel).
Whereas sodium chloride losses (middle panel) were the
same in both groups of athletes, athletes who maintained
their serum sodium concentrations during the race lost
about two litres of fluid. In contrast, athletes who developed
EAH or EAHE during the Comrades Marathon finished with a
fluid excess that ranged from two-to-six litres.
Thus this study conclusively established already in 1991
that EAH and EAHE is due to fluid retention to which a
sodium chloride deficit plays little if any role. In 2005 the
International Consensus Conference on EAH (20) confirmed
that this conclusion is correct.
cept that only if athletes drank “as much as tolerable”
could they exercise safely (16,17,32,33). These guidelines failed to emphasize the established finding that
the overconsumption of sodium-poor fluids during
exercise could have fatal consequences (18).
This danger was first acknowledged only after the
2002 Boston Marathon at which the next two critical
events occurred. First Cynthia Lucero died as a result
of drinking too much of an electrolyte-containing
sports drink during the race (34). Second, residents
from the Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical
School chose that particular race to study the factors
associated with EAH and EAHE in runners in that specific race (28). That study found that 13% of the stud50
PRACTICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY • SEPTEMBER 2008
In 2005 the First International Consensus Conference on EAH concluded that EAH is caused by excessive fluid consumption to which a sodium deficit plays
little if any role (20). A subsequent collaborative
research paper combining this information (36) concluded that 3 factors cause EAH:
1. Voluntary overdrinking caused almost certainly by
behavioral conditioning in those who have been
instructed to drink “as much as tolerable” in order “to
stay ahead of thirst” during exercise.
2. A failure to suppress the secretion of ADH in the
face of increased total body water content—the syndrome of Inappropriate ADH secretion (SIADH).
3. Relocation of internal sodium stores. There is growing evidence that the sodium present in the body is
not located only in the extra-cellular compartment.
Rather it seems that there may be a substantial
amount of sodium stored in an osmotically-inactivate
form (Na) within certain cells. Extracellular sodium
may then be added to that store in the process of
inactivation of osmotically-active sodium (Na+).
Alternatively, osmotically inactive sodium may be
activated and added to that already present in osmotically-active form in the extracellular fluid.
We also found that approximately 70% of athletes
who gain weight during exercise (because they both
over-drink and fail appropriately to suppress ADH
secretion) do not develop EAH (36). Since these athletes could not have ingested enough sodium during
exercise to maintain the serum sodium concentration
in the face of a large increase in total body water, they
(continued on page 52)
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NUTRITION ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY, SERIES #66
(continued from page 50)
Table 2.
Key factors in the prevention of EAH and
of fatal outcomes in EAHE
1. Teach athletes to drink according to the dictates of
thirst before, during and after exercise.
2. Physicians treating collapsed athletes with an altered
level of consciousness should not infuse any fluids
intravenously until a diagnosis of EAHE has been
excluded.
3. Once a diagnosis of EAHE has been established only
hypertonic (3% or greater) saline solutions should be
used for intravenous therapy.
must have relocated Na+ from an internal body store.
Alternatively abnormal osmotic inactivation of extracellular Na+ could worsen EAH in those who overdrink during exercise and who fail appropriately to
suppress ADH secretion.
The point is that the development of the condition
will occur only in those who are pre-disposed because
(i) they fail appropriately to suppress ADH secretion in
response to overdrinking resulting in an expansion of
the total body water and (ii) they are either unable to
mobilize Na+ from internal stores of osmotically-inactive Na or (iii) they inactivate osmotically-active circulating Na+ present in the extracellular space, storing
it as Na in an intracellular site.
It therefore follows that the real etiology of EAH
can only be studied in persons who exhibit all these
abnormalities. For example, attempting to show that
sodium ingestion can prevent EAH by studying subjects who are not predisposed to its development
because they lack these biological variants, will not
likely uncover the truth.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
1. EAH is an iatrogenic disease caused by the promotion
of a false physiology. Humans are highly adapted for
exercise in the heat and do not need to drink to excess
to optimize their performance during exercise. Nor is
there any evidence that high rates of fluid ingestion
are required to prevent ill health during exercise.
When athletes drank little during exercise, they did
not develop EAH and EAHE. Only after the introduction of the drinking guidelines which encouraged
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PRACTICAL GASTROENTEROLOGY • SEPTEMBER 2008
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
athletes to drink “as much as tolerable” in order to
prevent a novel medical disease—“dehydration”—
and to optimize athletic performance, did the prevalence of EAH and EAHE suddenly increase.
EAHE is not a benign condition. At least 10 deaths
from the condition have been described in the scientific literature (4). All these deaths were foreseeable and preventable.
Not everyone who overdrinks during exercise will
develop EAH or EAHE. Rather it appears that only
those with genetic variants which cause (i) the
oversecretion of ADH even when they are overhydrated, (ii) the relocation of extracellular Na+ to an
intracellular osmotically-inactive Na store or (iii)
the inability to activate the reverse process in the
face of a large increase in total body water, are at
risk of developing EAH and EAHE.
Prevention of EAH and EAHE is simple. It requires
only that athletes drink according to thirst before,
during and after exercise.
Some patients with EAH or EAHE have died
because of inappropriate treatment—specifically
the provision of hypotonic or isotonic intravenous
fluids in large volumes—for the treatment of
“dehydration.” Yet these athletes were overhydrated because they had drunk to excess during
exercise and had retained that fluid because of
SIADH. Fluid restriction, not the provision of isotonic or hypotonic NaCl solutions in large volumes,
is the basis for the safe treatment of EAHE.
A fatal outcome can be prevented by a high level of
clinical suspicion. It requires clinicians to understand that an altered level of consciousness is NOT
caused by the mild levels of “dehydration” experienced by athletes competing in modern athletic
events (36) in which fluid is readily available during exercise. Typically, an altered level of consciousness in athletes in whom there is no other
obvious cause (such as cardiac arrest or a cerebrovascular accident) will be due to either heatstroke or EAHE. Heatstroke can be excluded by the
measurement of a rectal temperature less than about
41°C in which case EAHE becomes the most likely
diagnosis in athletes who do not exhibit other overt
clinical signs indicating intracerebral or cardiovascular pathology. EAHE often presents initially as
Water Intoxication
NUTRITION ISSUES IN GASTROENTEROLOGY, SERIES #66
confusion and withdrawal, similar to that seen in
persons with mild head injury (concussion).
7. Treatment is simple and life-saving. The key is that
no fluids with a NaCl concentration less than 3%
(i.e. hypertonic saline) should be used. For severe
cases of EAH, 3%–5% NaCl solutions given intravenously at slow rates are life saving (20).
The adoption of these guidelines has minimized
the incidence of EAH and its potential fatal complication, EAHE, in New Zealand and South Africa.
SUMMARY
There is and never was a need for EAH or EAHE to
occur. There is no need ever for a fatal outcome. Deaths
are always due to lack of awareness on the part of athletes, their coaches, their doctors, race organizers and
powerful commercial interests, all of which have conspired to encourage overdrinking during exercise. The
knowledge deficit extends to those emergency ambulance personnel and emergency care physicians who
believe that “dehydration” can cause an altered level of
consciousness including the development of coma and
who, as a result, have treated overhydrated athletes suffering from EAH and EAHE, with the rapid infusion of
large volumes of iso- or hypotonic NaCl solutions. The
only effect of such treatment is acutely to increase
intracerebral pressure, with the production of cerebellar
coning, respiratory arrest and brain death. I
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